NYT: It’s Rucksacks and Foxholes as Army Goes Old School for New Conflicts
Chief Tango sends us a link to the New York Times article this morning entitled It’s Rucksacks and Foxholes as Army Goes Old School for New Conflicts. I’m thinking that the Times just ran out of content and decided to publish anything that shows up in their feed. It’s about the troops returning to basic skills training after a decade of deployments to fight a known enemy in a known environment. Apparently, the worst part of being a soldier is eating MREs and digging foxholes;
When Staff Sgt. Chris Brown headed into the swamplands of Georgia for a military training exercise early this spring, he found himself missing his time in Iraq and Afghanistan — and the relative comforts he had enjoyed there at the height of both wars.
Without running water, he now had to bathe with baby wipes and shave without a mirror. He had no idea how his favorite basketball team, the Golden State Warriors, was faring in the playoffs. And the food was so bad that he relied on peanut butter crackers and lost 10 pounds.
[…]
Cpl. Amy Alexander, who has worked in an office for the past six years as a human resources specialist, said that the Army’s new approach to training had taught how to operate in the field for the first time in her career.
“It was a lot harder than I thought to dig your own foxhole,” said Corporal Alexander, 23. “With the way the Army is changing, we have to be able to deploy into any place and set up where we are. So we all needed to know how to man our own fighting positions and pull security.”
Yeah, well, as I’ve said a hundred times before here – the reason that Desert Storm was a unqualified success and the reason that it only lasted a hundred hours was because of the fact that we had trained to fight that exact war against the Soviet tactics and equipment for fifteen years. Every day, every where. It was the same for the “Thunder Run” to Baghdad in 2003. Luckily, for us, we didn’t have to stop midstream and change tactics. We ran a very long Grafenwoehr-style Table XII and then went home. The Army deserves some credit for switching from counter-insurgency training and back to basics instead of fighting the last war all over again.
I’m not sure what the Times’ point is, other than they interviewed two soldiers who had gotten soft during the war against terror and who never really saw much of the real war. If this is the corporal’s first time learning to operate in the field during her career, she hasn’t had much of an Army career.
Category: Army News
Don’t forget sergeants time. The good old days in 5th and 7th corps.
‘…he now had to bathe with baby wipes and shave without a mirror’. Aww, that’s so sad.
The guys in the foxholes in WWII didn’t have baby wipes. Some of them didn’t even have mirrors. In Vietnam, water in the bush was too precious to use it for bathing or shaving.
I guess they’ll learn something new, eh?
“Baby Wipes”.
An appropriate name.
Maybe we’ll start putting “Baby On Board” placards on all Army vehicles too…
(thumbs up)
Umm, I used baby wipes in Iraq to bathe with, in Afghanistan to bathe, and have used them every time I have went to the field since 1987.
I have had and used a rucksack since 1987.
I have Dug fighting possitions as an Infantryman, an MP and even as a Signal Soldier and officer.
How is this news???
Wow, since 1987? did you know Elvis by chance?
Haha, @&$@/$@”?&@
This is news? I stayed in the field as a NG MP and later for DS/DS. And that was 87-93. MREs. baby wipes (when you could get them) and digging two man fighting positions with E tools. Hell we even used shelter halves during PLDC.
Concur, enlisted in 1987 and was a big fan of baby wipes in the field all the way to retirement in 2012. Rucksacks and digging foxholes are new? And it’s his own damn fault if he’s shaving without a mirror. What in the actual fuck are they teaching these kids.
We could smell those scented baby wipes from 1000 meters too…
😉
You can get ’em unscented. Attack from downwind when you can 😉
Better to smell like a baby’s ass than your own.
Back during the war of northern aggression i ussed to dig trenches around Richmond with a wooden spar. Then i went to little big horn and fell off my high horse before the injuns could slap my baby dick.
Go out for a while, and came back in for WW1 for a tour of France. FOBs weren’t as good and we had no power. Those french MREs were nasty, and had to wipe with used kraut socks.
Maybe it’s follow up article to the Ft. Hood incident?
“…we have to be able to deploy into any place and set up where we are. So we all needed to know how to man our own fighting positions and pull security.”
I’m probably dating myself, but when did the Army stop doing ARTEPs, or some varaiation of same?
As long as you’re not calling them ORTTs, you’re not old.
Glad to hear that.
As an OC at a Combat Training Center that first came in the army in 1986, I am never surprised by the nearly complete lack of field-craft shown by most rotational units. It is sad. On a good note, the skills come back quickly if someone is there that can teach them. Unfortunately, those most resistant AND least experienced at it are the ones that were exposed to the FOB life for most of their junior and mid-grade NCO or officer careers. This crowd has no frame of reference, but are expected to lead, enforce, and train on those standards. The reason why those skills have all but disappeared is completely understandable, but still, they are gone and only slowly coming back, and it will take a lot more time in the field than most units are currently getting in order to generate them.
Its okay though. The senior NCOs who were around back in the 90s are the ones getting kicked out now so they can teach younger troops how to function in the field. Oh, wait…..
On a side note: they still have corporals? These days you’re more likely to run into a winged pig than an E-4 who isn’t a specialist. Glad to see they haven’t gone away completely. 🙂
How is a “Human Resource SPECIALIST” a corporal?
According to the regs, if an E-4 is doing the job of an E-5 (Sergeant), they can be laterally appointed to Corporal.
I can’t speak to this one’s reason for being Corporal. I’ve seen it handed out like candy and I’ve seen it earned. So, who knows.
I don’t know where the Cpl (human resource -42A- has corporals?) went to BCT, but they should have spent some time in the field if only for a few days, manning a fighting position. In fact they should have spent more time in the field than BCT troops in the late 90’s.
I get that a HR MOS is not going to spend a lot of time outside, but how do you go six years with out at least one FTX or CPX? Even in the Reserves we do a minimum of two CPX’s and an FTX a year. (granted when I was 1SG, and we had the whole budget shutdown BS, we did end up doing an FTX in the parking lot of the center. – we loaded up, locked the doors, drove a five mile loop, unpacked, set up, and trained with out going back inside.)
I don’t think they do anything but Yoga and mandatory classes in BCT these days.
I’ll do one better, our CSM we got stuck with for a tour in Iraq in 05-06 hadn’t been in the field in 10 years. She was in postal units, admin units, etc., and never went to the field.
Junior Soldiers had to show her how to take apart an M16 and an M4 to clean them. She thought she’d have to zero an M9 pistol. (Yes, really) She also had to be shown how to work an MRE heater because she hadn’t used one before. (Yes, the thing with the instructions on the side of it) I know its a shocker, but she was a horrid leader and didn’t know the first thing about leadership.
So, it is possible, even for higher level types that they never step foot in the field. Especially in the administrative type units.
But, as I mentioned above, the regulations authorize Specialists to be laterally appointed to Corporal if they are performing the duties of an E-5 (Sergeant). So, it is possible that she was given the rank for a reason. There are a few badass 42A types I know of that I would’ve made Corporals in the past, if it were up to me.
Maybe they should re-expand the old Specialist ranks so they can promote admin, postal and other types without the danger of the unqualified being given important duties to which they are simply unsuited.
I’m certainly not trying to insult those who have those jobs.
“We” have been saying that for years. Even when I was in Basic in the early 90s there was talk of bringing back SP5, 6, 7, etc.
It is just ridiculous that some are given rank that they can’t implement properly because they have such poor leadership skills. And/or, they don’t need the rank.
There are plenty of personnel who are great and have expertise of a particular function that don’t need it.
We even allow officers to be promoted as such these days. Staff officers, functional area experts, etc.
They are fighting positions as the Marines will tell you. Foxes run and hide and do not fight.
Being a SeaBee I used to laugh when we were told that we could not use a Backhoe to dig our fighting positions. Yeah right. It says SeaBee on my shirt not stupid. WTF do you think a Backhoe was invented for.
Using a backhoe woukd give you an unfair advantage over the enemy. We can’t have that, we have to play nice with the people trying to kill us.
I was gonna say something in response, but this was much funnier.
The link to the article takes me through an interrogation process. Its getting nearly impossible to post a link to something these days without getting bombed with pop ups and signup assaults.
Meanwhile back at the ranch; I read stuff like this and it scares the shit out of me.
The Corps has been taking a beating with cutbacks. 10th Marines had 5 Battalions…they are down to two. 9th Marines is gone all together.
The MAUs can not sustain a long fight with a heavily armed enemy. We depend on the Army to come save our ass.
Even having the threat of the Army coming is a deterrent to our enemies.
I hope if that day ever comes, they show up knowing how to use a god damned entrenching tool.
Yeah, but the problem is, with the budget cuts nowadays, Soldiers will have to buy the entrenching tools themselves.
The pics that accompanied the article are dated 6 April. The article says that the sergeant didn’t know how the Golden State Warriors were doing in the playoffs. This was Georgia, USA, right? The playoffs began 16 April. How the hell long were they camping w/o radios or world connection?
Radio went in the rucksack right next to the babywipes and beef jerky. Some things you just don’t leave without.
And any commo specialist who doesn’t know how to tune a radio to civilian radio stations, didn’t get trained properly and should be sent back to AIT.
If your commo god really had his shit together, he could get that station sent to every LS 147 bitchbox onsite!
Working with Blackhorse we always had one radio in the TOC tuned to AFN in Germany for the hourly time-hack…
At least that was the excuse.
I ran a microwave relay site between Riyahd and KKMC during part of Desert Shield, kept the spare AN/GRC-106 tuned to the BBC. Heard Eric Clapton, live from the Royal Albert hall.
Supposedly, the radios we currently use are not capable of doing that. Or at least that is what every Commo guy I have had since 2008 has told us.
Until you walk away and they turn the radio back up. lol
What the….hell? Bathe with baby wipes and shave without a mirror? I did that as a reservist with an Engineer unit while we were on AT. That’s called “the field”. It’s not very fun, but that’s the Army. Don’t even get me started about when I switched over to Active Duty and reclassed into Field Artillery. Pansy ass POGs….
hygiene is a crutch
Unless you need an e-tool to get the sand out of your mangina, then just ewwwww.
Care packages? Email (or even phone calls) home? Shit, we ate what we loaded, provided it didn’t go bad. Family grams were a luxury. Hell, I went half the football season AND the playoffs not knowing if my beloved Broncos took it all or just plain sucked.
All this field training will interfere with the rehearsal for the LGBT Pride Parade.
They only went to the field for 2 days, so they could spend the other 28 days that month practicing. They had to put some extra time in, they were at work until 1730 a few nights, but they got it done.
Not to mention the endless Death By PowerPoint SHARP training sessions.
OMG! Oh My Gawd!!! What happens if you break a nail? There’s nowhere to get a manicure!
I swear, the NYT is written half the time for people whose worst nightmare is a wrinkled yoga mat.
And what’s up with “a generation of soldiers with more battlefield experience than any since World War II is getting back to basics” thing? It might be pointed out to the NYT writer dude that a minor hassle in Southeast Asia a few years ago generated roughly 10 times the casualties of Iraq and Afghanistan combined. Without baby wipes.
Personally, I’m not all that worried about kids in the Army today being able to do the mission. When push comes to shove, they’ll bitch and moan about it, they’re soldiers after all, but still manage to kill the enemy and break his stuff. It’s probably also true that once you let that dog off the leash, a lot of the REMFy bullshit about peanut butter and crackers tends to go away.
“It was a lot harder than I thought to dig your own foxhole.”
No shit.
Promote on the spot!
The fact they aren’t making them dig foxholes and fighting positions in the field at BCT is incredulous.
With the fact that BCT is co-ed these days, where else do troops have sex in the field? Do they sign up for the Drill Sergeant’s tent or something?
The EPA has banned digging on most of the posts now. Hell half the training areas at Fort Benning are wildlife protection zones now. Heaven help you if you get near a woodpecker, turtle or long needle pine.
I’ve been asking the question for two decades.
The Red Cockaded Woodpecker only seems to roost in trees on military installations, but it covers installations from Virginia all the way to Oklahoma. How the fuck is that bird endangered when it lives across 10 states? Seriously?
I’ve never gotten a response other than a smirk.
There are at least 10 Woody Woodpeckers, maybe more, ALL living at Great Lakes and what used to be Ft. Sheridan.
Did she complain about breaking her nails yet?
I brought up starting Sergeants Time again and was looked at like I said a dirty word before I retired. All I wanted was protected time for my Troop to do training instead of being tasked out. I know it seemed a pain back in the 90s, but I learned how important having protected, cannot do anything else, training time.
As far as ARTEPs, I had a CPT in the 3 shop reinventing the wheel for a zone reconnaissance. When I brought in an ARTEP from the house the next day, he looked at it and said “this is old stuff, we don’t operate that way anymore”. I laughed and told him to “keep it, I’m retiring, but if I was you, id take a good look at it, the equipment might have changed but the concept didn’t”.
Having spent time as an instructor, I was very much aware of how little “updating” to lengthy doctrinal manuals gets done. They replace a few terms, but say the same thing.
Doctrine writes are lazy. If they don’t have to reinvent the wheel, they’ll just spend their tour changing happy to glad.
Please note that, when the hit spits into the fan, those of you who were once the highly skilled and experienced FORMER employees may find yourselves needed again.
And if they called me today, I’d say “what time do you want me there?”
It’d be great if civilians in the gummint actually learned from history since they did the exact same thing in the 90s, then after 9/11 started calling people back up to go to war again.
No problem, I will switch from Viagra to Salt Peter. Good to go.
I can still ride to the sound of the guns. Takes a little longer to get in the saddle though.
As long as they give me credit for what I’ve done since before you all were out of diapers….
I’ve been out of them since Ike…so…it’s been a long while there Ex.
These days I’m just hoping to stay out of ’em…
I deployed w VII Corps, after Desert Storm I went back to Europe and spent pretty much the next 18 months straight at Graf & Hohenfels with 8th ID & 1st AD….The drawdown in Europe had eliminated all sorts of units- which freed up training calendars.
It really made me want to be deployed- deployments were easier than pretty much any training exercise I’ve been on.
Kids these days…
Some would sh*t themselves if they had to maintain their boots, iron uniforms, or stand a “junk-on-the-bunk” inspection.
The worst thing we did was get rid of the black boots that required shining.
Even seeing my black jungle boots on with my ACUs when I first got them, I thought they looked much better together than the tan boots.
I don’t even bother taking care of my tan boots, if they get dirty I just hit them with some water. It saddens me to not be able to polish boots anymore.
awwwww poor babies gotta play real military for a few days.
Holy shit….just…holy shit.
” …he now had to bathe with baby wipes and shave without a mirror….And the food was so bad that he relied on peanut butter crackers and lost 10 pounds”
This guy is an E6? Are you sure that link doesn’t go to The Duffel Blog? Obviously not Infantry. “Wuss” is not a strong enough word.
“It was a lot harder than I thought to dig your own foxhole,”
Unless her entrenching tool bent or broke she has no idea.
Sounds like the type that would go to the Medics wanting a profile for having a hangnail.
I’d write him a profile… “Diagnosis – MPH”
Jeezuz….
I reckon digging a slit trench is no longer PC in today’s Army either….
Tisk, Tisk, what’s this modern ARMY coming to?
They must be just a bunch rear echelon mother fuckers and girl scout’s! In the early days, early 70’s all we did was be in the field for operations, no matter the weather or what!!! If you can’t live out of your ruck then you are no soldier!
Even the post headquarters unit went to the field once a year when I was at McClellan in the mid nineties.
Then again, this a New York Times article; the old gray mare ain’t what she used t’ be.
Lemme see…
Jack Frost 75 & 76…
January, Ft Wainwright, Ft Greely and maybe if you’re lucky Eilson AFB in the sticks about 30 miles NE of there and about 200 miles from nowhere…
Forty below, Ahkio sled with frozen solid C-Rats left over from Vietnam, frozen water cans, canteens frozen solid and living in an Arctic tent with a Manchu Stove going to provide enough heat to keep it above freezing… Don’t forget wearing snowshoes and humping over some of the most God-forsaken frozen tundra on planet Earth…
And they’re worried about baby wipes…
What a bunch of pussies…
“With the way the Army is changing, we have to be able to deploy into any place and set up where we are.”
This is a change within the Army? Hasn’t the Army and other services always been available for deployment ‘into any place’ since day one?
Don’t confuse the issue with facts Chief.